“Claire,” she said. “You deserve to forgive yourself. You deserve a family yourself and you shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting that.”
“I’ll take these through. Who’s prepping vegetables?” I said, moving the subject on with no grace whatsoever.
Marie rolled her eyes at me. “Seph and Callum. Because they’re both little shits.”
I laughed, pushing the door open into the kitchen to be greeted with laughter, my father and Max debating something completely obtuse in between tearing Seph a new asshole for a random opinion that neither agreed with. Given how much everyone bullied my youngest brother it was amazing he’d turned out as well as he had.
“I hope you’re not going to attempt to cook,” Killian said, spotting me with an armful of vegetables.
“Be careful,” I said. “My aim is good.”
“Better than her cooking,” Jackson said after removing the foot of a twin from his mouth. “Whichever bloke ends up with her either needs a stomach of steel or be happy cooking himself.”
Vanessa popped her head up from the floor where she was playing with Margot. “Hang on. Am I about to marry a man who thinks it’s still nineteen fifty-five and a woman’s place is in the kitchen? Because if that’s the case, I might need to rethink…”
For a moment Jackson looked genuinely panicked which caused Max to double over in silent laughter and Callum to take a photo with his phone. “No, just that any man who ends up with Claire - and given that she should come with a health warning, it’s doubtful that will happen – will have to be able to cook as she can’t… I’m not saying that she should have been cooking all the time, for him, or… you know, fuck it. You’re all fucking wind up merchants.” His expression turned sulky as Vanessa began to laugh at his reaction.
“It’s alright, Jacks,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “I’ve promised your brothers and sisters I’ll go through with the wedding. They’ve threatened to sue me for breach of contract if I pull out now.”
“Just for the record,” I said, putting the veggies in the sink for washing. “My cooking is fine. I can follow a recipe which is better than most of you, given that you spend most of your salaries on take outs and restaurants.”
“Maybe you should cook lunch then,” my dad said. “Get two of the boys to help you prep…”
“No way,” Seph stood up, shaking his head. “She’d either kill us with a cleaver or with salmonella. Besides, mum’s Sunday lunch is the only reason I’m still here. No offense everyone.”
I aimed a carrot at his head, surprisingly hitting the target.
“That’s enough,” Marie said, extracting a second carrot from my hand. “Joseph and Callum come here. The rest of you need to bugger off. It’s ten o’clock and I want everything prepped and good to cook for eleven. Dinner will be at two. So, unless any of the rest of you want jobs, I suggest you scarper. That includes you, husband dear.”
My father gave a perturbed look, collected his papers and moved, still wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown. I followed him outside where the sun was already beating down. It was going to be another warm day, cloudless and still. Dad disappeared to his oversized shed from which everyone except his brewing buddies were banned, and I slipped away to the swing, an old rope and plank affair that had been hanging from a giant, ancient oak since I was about twelve.
“So, you learned to cook?”
I turned to see Killian, hands in jeans pockets, blonde hair tussled, standing behind me.
“I just don’t broadcast the fact that I can manage a decent meal or two. You know what my brothers are like: I’d never be rid of them and they’d be turning up uninvited when they couldn’t be bothered to go to the supermarket,” I said, starting to push myself off the ground, the branch creaking slightly with the movement.
Hands braced my back then pushed as I swung backwards, giving me more lift. I caught the scent of Killian’s aftershave, something woody and musky that made me want to bury my nose into his neck and inhale until the smell was etched on my memory. I laughed as I went higher and he stopped pushing, moving to the front to watch me.
“You should do this more often,” he said as I began to slow. “It’s good to see you not looking serious or cross.”
“I’m not always serious or cross,” I said. “It’s my job that makes me that way.”
He said nothing, just giving me a gaze that suggested he knew otherwise but wasn’t going to argue.
“I should have everyone round to mine to prove I can cook. Seph and Jackson are going to keep harping on about this forever,” I said, hopping off the swing and finding my legs shaky.
Killian grinned broadly, half to himself. “Sounds good. That’s where your competitive nature benefits everyone.”
“I’m not competitive!” I said, feeling my blood start to simmer slowly.
Again, he smiled. “I’ll not have that argument,” he said, beginning to walk towards the fields, wild flowers scattering colour through the green. Across the fields was a wood, shaded pathways cutting through trees and a slim river that fed eventually into the Cherwell. As a child I had built treehouses with my brothers. As a teenager I had sought the silence the wood provided as a place to reflect and find peace away from the continual company. Now, as an adult, it was comfort, my escape.
I knew Killian ran through the fields and the woods when he stayed, as did my brothers, and it appeared that he was now leading me that way, to a place where we could talk away from the likely interruptions of my brothers. My heart pounded as I walked with him. He looked relaxed which was his usual demeanour. The yin to my yang.
“I guess we’re going to have that conversation,” I said, needing to fill the air with something other than birdsong.
He shrugged. “We can do. Or we can just enjoy being outside in the fresh air in a place that’s not London.”
